


A Long Winter's Nap

by mrswinchester67



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Feels, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Mid-Credits Scene, Cryogenics, Emotional, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Sort Of Fluff, Steve and Bucky - Freeform, Stucky - Freeform, bucky goes back on ice, cause tbh we all know Steve would have been more emotional, good guy t'challa, how the mid credits scene SHOULD have gone down, im too wordy and I'm sorry, mentions of self harm, moslty angst, not sorry, t'challa tried not to be awkward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 05:13:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7561741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrswinchester67/pseuds/mrswinchester67
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is just a one shot of how I think the mid-credits scene should have gone down because it was way too short and emotionless and I'm pretty sure they were trying to cover up all the gay they wrote into the movie itself. </p>
<p>Steve goes to see Bucky off as he's about to go back under cryo-freeze after the events of Caltain America:Civil War. Lots of angst but there's some fluff too. Not super happy ending but there's hope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Long Winter's Nap

**Author's Note:**

> A HUGE thank you to eighty7kurr on tumblr for helping me edit my mistakes and fixing my misplaced modifiers cause God knows I do that too much. I should really not write the way my brain thinks.

The room was quiet except for the soft shuffle of feet as the doctors took their places in the room. Steve’s mind was buzzing with unasked questions as he walked into the center of the room where Bucky was sitting on an examination table. As he approached, Bucky looked up and greeted him with a tired smile.

“You sure about this?” Steve said, mirroring a tired smile of his own.

“Well no,” Bucky said with a huff, “but it’s safer this way. I just don’t wanna hurt anybody else.”

Steve struggled to find the words in the short silence, his mouth opening and closing again before he spoke.

“We can find another way, Buck. You don’t have to do this,” his words soft, his eyes pleading.

Knowing what he’d see, Bucky couldn’t meet his gaze as he stared at his own hand resting on his thigh.

“Of course I do. What other choice do we have?”

“Me.” Steve said commanding. Like it was an order.

Bucky huffed a small laugh and looked up. His weary eyes finally meeting Steve’s blue eyes, bloodshot with stress.

“And what are you gonna do Steve? Lock me in a room until we can figure out how to get this shit out of my brain?” There was no anger in his voice. Just a tired resignation.

“Of course not. I’ll just make sure you’re not in a situation that would trigger you. We’ll just have to be careful.” Steve said, matter-of-factly like the answer had been there all along.

Bucky shook his head softly as he looked away.

“You can’t always be there, Steve. Something’s gonna happen one day, and somebody’s gonna get hurt. God forbid it be you.” The thought alone made his blood run cold and his eyes close. “I couldn’t live with that one. Although I’d have to find an interesting way to off myself, because the normal ones don’t work on me. I’ve tried.” Bucky slowly shifted his weight forward until he was standing as Steve stepped forward.

“Jesus, Buck…” Steve said, closing his eyes. The thought of Bucky dying _again_ was too much. “I just got you back, and now I gotta say goodbye again?” His eyes gleamed with fresh tears, threatening to spill over.

“I know,” said Buck, reaching forward and gently grabbing Steve’s hand. “I just got you back too.”

He stared into Steve’s eyes, willing himself to remember everything this time. He knew his mind wasn’t going to be wiped and that this time was different, but he couldn’t shake the dread of going back under yet again. Steve shifted on his feet until they were almost chest to chest and their feet side to side. As they studied one another’s faces, the remaining doctors silently left the room to give them some privacy. The silence between them held 70 years of lost time aching to reconnect, yet here they were with just a couple minutes. The door closed and they were alone at last, although nothing changed. There could have been a hundred people or zero people in the room and it would have still been just Steve and Bucky looking at each other.

Bucky moved his hand, only the one now, again, to cup Steve’s face, just long enough to trace a thumb over his cheekbone, and then he slid his hand around to the back of Steve’s neck and pulled him gently into a hug. Steve hugged him back tighter than he’d ever held him, trying to keep him in front of him just a little longer. Any other person would have probably had trouble breathing under the strength, but Bucky held fast, moving his arm to Steve’s back and pulling him tighter. They pulled away only enough to rest their foreheads together. Steve slotted a hand through Bucky’s hair, resting it against his neck and leaving it there.

“I don’t know what to do now.” Steve said, hopelessness creeping under his skin.

“Stevie… look at me,” said Bucky, a soft determination in his eyes as he ducked his chin to look at the man in front of him.

 “You were Captain America way before some serum made you famous. I’ve been pulling your ass out of alleys from the moment I met you,” Bucky said with a soft smile. “The Steve Rogers that I knew was persistent to a fault.” Bucky smiled fondly as a memory came back to him of a beaten and bloodied Steve smiling up at him through swollen eyes and a busted lip. “He certainly never gave up.”

Bucky let out a small laugh, and Steve finally met his gaze.

“I just don’t think I’m that guy anymore, Buck. That was a lifetime ago.”

Steve’s burden was obvious in the weight of his brow and sadness in his eyes as he took mental notes of Bucky’s face. It hadn’t changed all that much once you looked past the long hair framing it and the unshaved stubble. He really didn’t look all that different with most of the stress lines Steve had noticed that he’d gotten over the years he was used as the Winter Soldier now smoothed out in the most peaceful look Steve’s seen on his face since he’d seen him on the bridge only a few days ago.

“I don’t think either of us are exactly who we used to be, but that’s okay. You know why?” Bucky said as he moved his arm to Steve’s hip and pulled gently.

Steve pursed his lips and shook his head once.

“Because we’re alive.” Bucky pronounced each word slowly, begging his words to reach Steve. “By some miraculous, albeit sick, manipulation of fate, we both got a second chance to live the lives that were taken from us a long time ago. I know we both went through some fuck tons of shit that we should have never had to go through. But now… sitting here looking at you again, I just… I can’t bring myself to regret the circumstances, as bad as that sounds, because they led us here. And for the first time in…” Bucky shook his head and let out an incredulous laugh, “shit, I don’t know, at least 70 years I feel… I guess ‘hopeful’ is the word.”

“Buck, I…” Steve lowered his head until he was leaning into his neck. “God, I wish I could see something good in this right now, but all I can think of is that you’re getting taken away from me. Again. And I just can’t help but worry that the worst is going to happen and you’re actually gonna be gone this time, and after havin’ you back, even for these few days, I just…” his jaw clenched as he bit back the bile rising at the thought, “I just can’t go back to life without you.” Steve wrapped his arms around Bucky, willing him to stay, not wanting to let go. Not again.

“Shh, Steve. Don’t cry.” Bucky said, cradling him the best he could against him with one arm and nestling his cheek against Steve’s as he backed up until he was sitting again on the examination table. “I know it’s not the perfect situation, but I need to know that you’re gonna try okay? You gotta promise me that you won’t do anything stupid until I get back. And it _will_ happen. These doctors are gonna find a way to fix me and then we’ll figure it out from there. You’ll be beggin’ ‘em to put me back on ice in no time, you’ll see.”

Bucky tried to ignore the stinging in his eyes, as he held Steve tighter when he felt him shaking against him. The first tears in 70 years rolled silently down his cheeks as he closed his eyes, memorizing the moment.

When Steve finally stopped shaking and released his death grip from around Bucky, he was exhausted and moved to sit next to him. He wiped his now slightly swollen eyes with his sleeve, cleared his throat, and let out a slow ragged sigh. He stared forward into nothing as he took Bucky’s hand in his and threaded their fingers together. Bucky’s thumb started rubbing small circles over Steve’s knuckles, just letting their companionable silence hang around them like a blanket. Steve leaned into his side and Bucky moved his arm to wrap around Steve’s shoulders. They were very different sized shoulders than the last time he slung an arm around them.

“It’ll be okay, Stevie. You’ll see.” Bucky spoke quietly, not wanting to disturb their silence as he placed a soft kiss to Steve’s temple.

They sat like that until T’challa peaked his head into the room and told them they had to begin shortly. As he walked out to give them a couple more minutes, Bucky got up and stood in front of Steve, slotting in between his knees with the same familiarity of years long past. He cupped Steve’s jaw gently and he melted into the touch, bringing up his hand to rest on Bucky’s. When he opened his eyes, which he wasn’t aware he’d closed, he was met with Bucky’s cool, steel blue ones, and he wore another sad smile as they stared at each other. The feelings between them needed no words to be understood. They never had. Not when they were kids sharing a candy bar on the playground. Not when they had been teenagers on double dates but still staring only at each other. Not even when they were grown and shared a cot on those impossibly cold nights at some god forsaken campsite, too close to enemy lines, never knowing which embrace might be their last.

Bucky pulled Steve up to his feet again and pulled him in close as medical personnel slowly trickled in. This was it.

Steve could feel new tears pricking at the corners of his eyes as he held onto Bucky like he was his only tether to the world. He pulled back enough to study his eyes intensely, and then their lips met and slid against one another, the feeling making them both deliciously homesick for another time that they would never get back. The kiss began to morph from slow and emotional to urgent and desperate as they knew their time was up. The strong grip they had on one another became more bruising and pleading, trying to stretch the seconds as far as they could. They finally broke away when their lungs were screaming for air and they stood panting, Bucky’s hand still gripping the back of Steve’s jacket in a fist as Steve kept Bucky grounded with a strong grip on his hips.

T’challa walked silently behind Bucky, his head solemnly bowed as he softly cleared his throat.

“We must begin now, Captain.”

Steve sighed a sad resignation and tilted their foreheads together one more time.

“I love you, Buck,” he said in a breathless whisper. “Always have, always will.”

“I love you too, punk. And I hope you know that I always knew that. Even when I wasn’t sure of anything. Even when I didn’t know who I was, I knew. Even if I didn’t exactly remember everything or who you were, I knew I loved you. You were always a nameless face I would go to in my darkest times. Even then, you were still saving me.” Bucky leaned in for one last kiss, this one soft and full of love as he placed his palm against the side of Steve’s face, feeling the wet tears and stubble underneath.

Steve pulled himself away, knowing he would never want to stop and if he continued, he would change his mind about letting Bucky do this. Steve cleared his throat and squared his shoulders and stilled himself as he took in Bucky one more time with a look of steeled determination and strength. He had to be okay. He had to do this for Bucky. No matter how long he had to wait, he would. He’s waited seventy years, and with the memory of this kiss, he could do it again if he had to.

Bucky saw the fire in Steve’s eyes as he looked at him and he couldn’t help the proud smile that spread over his face.

“There’s my Steve.” He said as he took Steve’s hand in his and squeezed.

T’challa watched with a sad smile, far too wise for his age, as they walked hand in hand to the cryo-chamber. Bucky got in slowly and let the doctors strap him in and attach the sensors and electrodes, while never letting go of Steve’s hand. Steve watched with worried eyes all the while until he noticed everyone had stopped moving. He glanced around and saw everyone looking between the two of them politely. They were waiting on them to let go. Steve took a slow hitched breath while Bucky looked at him with a smile. He finally got his fingers to release their grip on Bucky’s hand and almost whimpered at the loss of contact. Already, his hand felt too cold without Bucky’s in it.

Bucky clenched and unclenched his hand a couple times trying to get it to stop tingling as the blood returned with the loss of pressure while he continued to smile at Steve. Bucky straightened his neck to face forward, but his eyes still lingered on Steve as the glass moved into place to seal the chamber.

Steve put his palm against the glass, not caring if he was allowed to or not. He felt hot tears escaping over his cheekbones as he looked at Bucky behind yet another barrier between them.

The doctors signaled to Bucky that the process was about to start, and he nodded and turned his head ever so slightly to Steve and mouthed, “ _I love you_.” Only now did his eyes show a slight bit of fear right before they closed as he turned to face forward. The ice crept up and stilled his body just like he’d spent the better part of the last seventy years.

Steve, with his hand still against the glass, felt the cold seep into his palm and welcomed it, wanting to feel what Bucky was feeling, if only a bit. He doesn’t know how long he stayed that way, palm against the glass, head bowed, eyes closed, only that when he finally looked up, everyone was gone and the lights were out except for a small one in the cryochamber and the monitors on the wall. The pain in his neck let him know it had been a while and he reached a hand up to massage out the pain as he walked stiffly to the door. He spared a longing glance back at the equivalent of his heart and then forced himself to push past the doors and into the hall.

Everyone he passed suggested that he sleep and rest, but their voices were far away, and he barely heard them as he nodded at them and kept walking. There was no time to sleep or rest. He could sleep when he was dead. He strode toward T’challa’s chambers already putting together a battle plan.

If he had a plan, he could do anything. And he had some work to do.


End file.
